


light the fuse and burn

by Del (goddessdel)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Darillium, Dark, Descent into Madness, Episode: Night and the Doctor e04 Last Night, F/M, Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, Light BDSM, Madness, Minor Violence, Post Episode: s04e08-09 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, The Library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:09:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3724954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessdel/pseuds/Del
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has to collect her screwdriver from the Library.</p>
            </blockquote>





	light the fuse and burn

**Author's Note:**

> Written: 3/15/15-4/5/15.
> 
> Title: "I Will Not Bow" by Breaking Benjamin.
> 
> This is probably exactly as dark as the warnings imply. There's a bit of violence and dub-con and blood. There's a bit of hope, too.
> 
> I'm sorry?

He has to collect her screwdriver from the Library. His new one is too different, and his old one long lost. He wants to smack his younger self for leaving it there, as some sort of misguided memorial, rather than taking it with him after he plugged her into the data core.

 

(He wants to smack his younger self for that, too. Locking River in another cage - this one for all eternity. He should delete her echo while he's here, but he knows he's far too selfish to ever face the pain of pressing another button and losing the last bit of her to live on.)

 

He supposes he didn't want to take it with him - to admit that he'd one day be the man who would give her that sonic.

 

He doesn't want to be that man now, but he's run out of Rivers. The last ones he's seen have been fresh from Berlin, so achingly new that it hurts to look at her. And even those were so long ago now, so far apart, that they must be the last.

 

They're a terrible match, in those early meetings. River is wild and the Doctor feels dangerous. Like he would burn out planets to keep her with him. Like River would let him, laughing beside him and seeing how far he will go.

 

He doesn't know how far he will go, anymore.

 

So he goes to the Library instead. It's time to take her to Darillium, before he cannot be the man she described in her dying breath. Before he ruins her before she's even fully formed. Before the shadows consume him.

 

Not literally. They scurry from the light of the TARDIS, too bright for an abandoned planet. The Doctor dares them to come out, but the shadows stay silent and still, watching. Waiting for him to keel over and die of his own accord, perhaps. Or perhaps he's just too old and bitter for their tastes now.

 

Her diary and sonic are covered in dust, bleached from the sun hitting the railing. There is no sun now. His fingers shake with misery or fury, a flame inside him raging at the injustice as he collects them.

 

River Song was dead the day he met her, and yet he still has to lead her to her grave.

 

He won't be the Doctor for a while after this, he thinks. He'll put on a suit for River, and he'll shove his tweed into storage and just be through with it. Through with a universe that would be this cruel.

 

There's movement out of the corner of his eye - the shadows coming for him at last - and the Doctor spins, snarling, "You want me? Well, then, come and get me!"

 

"If you insist."

 

He blinks, staring at her as though she must be an apparition. She must be, after all. A hallucination or a ghost or a sign that he's properly losing his mind at last. River Song cannot be standing in front of him in the place that she died.

 

The Doctor chokes on the questions he wants to ask, teetering dangerously between horror and joy.

 

River strolls right up to him, hand resting at his bowtie. "Hello, sweetie."

 

Her touch electrocutes him, sends his hearts racing and nerves fraying and blood pounding. He has backed her into a bookcase before he even knows what he's doing, his hands clutching her arms too tight, trying to determine if she's real. She sounds, looks, smells, _feels_ real. "What -" his voice is raspy, so he tries again, "what are you doing here?"

 

Something that feels like hope flutters in his chest and makes him light-headed. If anyone could come back from death, it would be River. But what would she be doing, here?

 

River watches him for a moment, something flitting across her features too fast to catch, and then she offers him a conspiratorial smile. "I've been invited on an expedition, and I thought I'd sneak ahead."

 

There's a sinking, plummeting feeling in his body, blood roaring in his ears, and the Doctor lets out a hysterical little laugh. "Of course you did."

 

His grip on her tightens, he's sure - she's the only thing keeping him standing. Too tight. He should pry loose his fingers - he must be hurting her, but River doesn't flinch.

 

"Why are you here, Doctor?"

 

He feels that hysterical giggle bubbling up again. _To kill you_. "Just borrowing a book," he lies instead, forcing his voice into something approximating normal with a mask long practiced.

 

River licks her lips and his eyes are drawn helplessly to the movement. "The Library is closed."

 

He dips his head toward hers, almost close enough to kiss her. _Almost._ His body and mind are thrumming with something dark and dangerous. "Yes, well, I don't exactly have a library card."

 

"So you're stealing a book," River corrects, her body arching into his deliciously, all excitement and razor-edge. "You bad boy."

 

He doesn't deny it. The Doctor dips his head lower, lips hovering over her ear and cheek pressed against River's. It's reckless, but he doesn't care about that - he hasn't cared about that in a long while now. "Where are we then, Professor Song?"

 

River's lips brush his cheek, feather soft and blazing hot. "I think you know where I am. And you, Doctor? Where did you come from?"

 

She's right - it doesn't matter. Not here. They're both too old and guarded to let any spoilers slip - long past their youthful exuberance. He turns his head and lets his lips cover hers in answer.

 

If the first touch is tentative, it quickly gives way to a gripping, encompassing, _consuming_ need, leaving lips and tongues and teeth clashing desperately.

 

River's teeth close over his bottom lip, sharp, and a low, growling sound rumbles up through the Doctor's chest in response.

 

He tears free, running a shaking hand through his hair and trying to regain control over himself.

 

River laughs, the sound wild and pleased and a bit mocking. "Come now, Doctor, I thought you wanted it rough?"

 

When he raises his head again, he can see his handprints blooming in livid bruises on her arms in the weak light from the open TARDIS doors. He should be horrified, and a small part of him is - quickly drowned out by the resounding proof that she is _real_. They've bruised each other enough times to know that they'll fade by morning, but she is really here, her skin against his, and the marks prove it. He doesn't think even his twisted psyche would hallucinate his own guilty handprints on his wife.

 

The Doctor tongues at his injured lip, irritating wounded flesh. "You always do."

 

River saunters forward, her hand reaching up to caress his cheek. His head turns into her palm helplessly, drawn to her soft touch.

 

Her slap echoes through the empty halls, sending the Doctor's head spinning. He rubs at his throbbing jaw, fingers closing around her wrist before she can slap him again. "What was that for?"

 

River's eyes flash, accusing, her lips pressed tight. "You have to ask?"

 

 _For ruining her life_. "No."

 

He crowds her back into the bookshelf again, pinning her hands by her sides and kissing her to quiet the litany of accusations dancing behind her eyes. There's the sharp tang of blood in his mouth, his and hers, and they've given up completely on gentle, bodies and mouths coming roughly together, as though they could crawl inside one another, nestled between blood and flesh and bone.

 

River twists her mouth from his to bite her way along his jaw and neck, leaving hot, stinging marks along her path.

  
The Doctor releases her wrists in favor of sliding her roughly up the bookshelf, hands under her thighs as he presses closer between legs wrapped in a steel vice around his hips. River's nails dig into his throat as she undoes his bowtie, wrapping it in a perfect bow over the bruise blooming across the delicate skin of her wrist. And there's that darkness again, swirling up to mingle with the lust and misery.

 

They rip at each other's clothing then, buttons scattering, lost to the shadows. He undoes River's gun belt with practiced ease, hands shaking over the weapon before dropping it to thump heavily on the floor. River slides down his body, close enough to drag a groan from him, long enough for them to shove down his trousers and her jodhpurs. They separate just far enough for River to bend and undo her boots, and then they're both stepping out of their clothing and into one another, skin against skin, searing through to the marrow of his bones.

 

It's dangerous, foolish, to be so vulnerable here, with the shadows nipping at their heels and their only protection bathing in the light of the TARDIS.

 

It brings him to his knees, sinking there when his legs give out, head buried against River's skin to hide his face from her - hide his guilt - hide the damage.

 

River's hands wrap in his hair, tugging, nails digging into his scalp until he yelps and bites the side of her breast in retaliation.

 

"Harder."

 

A shudder runs through him at her demand, whip-sharp, and he's obeying before he can think it through, hands wrapping tight around her ribcage, just enough that he hears her breath catch as his mouth and teeth redouble their efforts, marking a path across the soft flesh of her breasts and the hard line of her sternum. Tangible reminders that she is _real_ , here with him inside her tomb.

 

River laughs, that wild laugh again, a bit dangerous and breathless.

 

They've played these games before, but the Doctor's control is frayed and brittle here, and he has to trust that River will stop him if he goes too far. He doesn't know what too far would be in this place.

 

(Not that he can stop himself - not that he can hide the way his fingers curl and cling to her, the loss of her making him grip her too tightly, too desperately.)

 

River pushes him pointedly down, and the Doctor closes his teeth around the sensitive flesh of her hip and thigh as he goes, relishing River's gasps in response. Her skin is flushed and hot against his lips, the undeniably real pounding of her blood through veins just underneath.

  
He wants to rend her open, bathe in her, crawl inside and never leave her, the way she crawled under his skin with a kiss and the last of her lives - invading and changing him until he wasn't the Doctor, wasn't _alive_ without River at his side.

 

He closes his eyes, breathing her in, settled between her thighs - his tongue just flicking out for the briefest taste. She is undeniably River here, something dark and dusty and fragile in the soft, slick flesh, swollen and begging for his kiss. She tastes like time and Gallifrey and, if he believed in them, heaven and hell, all wrapped up in something so uniquely River that no chemical in the universe compares. He's instantly drunk on her, drugged, tongue dragging across her, demanding more _more more_.

 

The needy sounds caught in River's throat echo through his head, driving him on, demanding that he make her scream. River lifts one leg over his shoulder, opening herself further to him, and the Doctor closes his lips around her swollen clit, sucking and teasing and nibbling, even as presses one finger inside her slick depths, achingly warm and pulsing.

 

He's quivering already, drowning in her even as he adds a second finger, curving them inside her with each slow press, her body gripping at him every time he withdraws, dragging him back in.

 

River's nails slice into his scalp and shoulder, sharp pinpricks of pain that send sparks radiating through his body. "More," her voice cracks.

 

With a low grunt, he shifts, pressing a third finger inside her and feeling the delicious stretch as River rocks her hips up and drives him deeper still. She's close, biting back keening sounds, nearly undone by the needy little circles of her hips.

 

The Doctor closes his free hand around her hip, curling his fingers around the bone, and holds her still, considering.

 

When he lifts his head to regard her, letting his other hand slip regretfully free from slick flesh, River glares down at him, mouth open and breasts heaving, and he thinks she means to slap him again.

 

"Not yet," he promises when her hands tug viciously at his hair. He catches her wrists, crushing his bowtie under sticky fingers, and staggers to his feet.

 

He pins River back against the bookshelves, bodies hot and heaving together, until she can feel just how badly he aches with needing her.

  
River arches against him, his cock trapped heavy between them, and flexes her wrists under his grip. "What are you waiting for then, Doctor? Fuck me."

 

He wants to tell her that it's not that between them, never _that_ , but River stretches up on her tiptoes, hitching one leg over his hip until he can feel the wet heat of her sex dragging over him. That growling sound bubbles up again, and it's all the Doctor can do to shift her wrists to one hand, the other digging into her thigh as he bends and lifts her until he can finally, _finally_ , slide inside her.

 

She's _burning_ him, branding him, and he'd gladly fall to ashes at her feet. He'll burn with her this time; he swears it in the press of his lips to her neck, tasting the sweat gathered in the hollow there.

 

Neither give the other time to adjust, hips rocking urgently as the Doctor brings his other hand to lift River, fingers digging into her thighs and bum and back as she drags across him, wrapping her legs around his hips and her newly bound wrists behind his neck, consuming him.

 

The Library echoes with the slick slap of their needy flesh, their sharp, lilting cries, loud, swirling through the dust and shadows.

 

He's strung taut to the point of breaking, so suffused with pleasure that it hurts, nerves raw and desperate, begging for harder, faster, deeper, _more_.

 

River crushes him to her until the only thing keeping them both standing is the bookshelf at her back as he drives them both desperately, relentlessly higher. Closer to the void.

 

He's talking, he thinks, or crying (perhaps both), lost to her skin and hair surrounding him, lost to the pounding of their hearts, just out of sync, eight beats instead of four, the wave of them rushing over him. Lost to the throbbing _want_ lacing through him, dragging him roughly back inside her the moment he leaves, all hard thrusts and encompassing desire.

 

River shatters around him with a scream, low and torn from somewhere deep inside, her whole body clutching and clenching and tearing at him, and still he wants more.

 

Spots are bursting behind his eyes from the effort of holding back, the flames of pleasure lashed with icy shards across his spine, but the Doctor lifts his head to watch River shatter, to memorize the moment of bliss that crosses her face, eyes dark and far from sated, as the void takes her.

 

There's a snap of torn cloth, and River's hand closes around his throat, nails digging in, just tight enough that it's hard to swallow or catch his breath. She draws him in for a biting kiss, more teeth than lips, stealing the last of his breath.

 

Her smile is blood red and vicious, the snap of her hips over his pulling him over the edge, the needles of pleasure bursting at her touch and grip and bite.

 

"That's it, _sweetie_ ," and there's something twisted in the way she hisses out the endearment through tightly clenched teeth, "no better way to christen my grave."

 

Her words ricochet through his head harsher than her slap, but he's already into the void under her, with her, the taut pleasure snapping and cracking open as he thrusts into her and loses himself, dimly aware of River's roughened scream lingering in his ears as they spiral together into nothingness.

 

It's his own harsh breathing resounding in his ears as the Doctor comes back to himself, the sound too loud in the silent Library. He's shaking as he unwinds himself from River, stumbling back into the TARDIS light and watching her with wide, fearful eyes. "What - I thought - you _said_ -"

 

His body is burning and throbbing from her teeth and nails and all the raw places where her skin is no longer melded with his.

 

River pushes herself slowly, deliberately from the bookshelf, her body a roadmap of _too much_. "I lied," she shrugs, too casual for the tension heavy between them.

 

She bends around their discarded clothing, the spines of books etched into her back, imprints of words and ink and dust, and returns with his bowtie, wilted and snapped in half. "Why did you come here, Doctor? Finally time to lay your wife to rest?"

 

There's no playfulness to her banter, only indictments, clear in the cool, resigned tone of her voice. No endearments now, but then, he doesn't think he could bear to hear her say _sweetie_ again in the sharp tone with which she bites out _Doctor_.

 

The Doctor flinches, backing away from her steady advance, guilt in every mark left on her skin. How many more marks, long faded; damage he's caused but never had to face? "I - no - that's not -"

 

"It's not what, Doctor?" The shadows are swallowing up their path back to the TARDIS, no Doctor Moon to chase away the dangers of the night. "You didn't come to say goodbye? To visit me in my latest prison of your devising for a midnight romp?"

 

He stumbles and falls, going heavily to his knees, and he thinks there are tears tracking down his face, dripping onto burning (burnt, flaking, broken) skin. " _River_ ," her name rips itself out of him, little more than a desperate moan, his hearts open and lying at her feet.

 

Her anger is a visceral thing, terrifying in its entirety, and yet he will take it gladly because it means - _it must mean_ \- that she has survived the Library.

 

She can hate him, so long as she is alive.

 

But River's eyes are wet as she tilts his chin up to look at her, hand soft and unbearably gentle. "Why are you here, Doctor? Why now? We said our goodbyes once already."

 

When he wraps his arms around her this time, he's so, so careful, drawing her down to him as his hands soothe over her wounds, tangible and invisible. "I haven't. I can't let you go - even though I should - even though it's _cruel_ not to, I know."

 

River is still tense in his arms, but he's luckier than he deserves because she doesn't pull away. She doesn't break his grip and turn away from him, as she ought to, as she always should have done. "You did let me go, Doctor. You left me here, and one day you will say goodbye with tears in your eyes, but it will still be a goodbye."

 

"No," he vows, fiercely, "it will be a promise." _Never goodbye_ , not for them.

 

" _Spoilers_ ," River manages, her voice choking on the word, though the tears in her eyes have yet to fall. So strong, his River - always so much stronger than him. "Even now."

 

He brushes his thumb over her cheek, over the path her tears are not allowed. "I'm taking you to Darillium."

 

"What?" River blinks up at him, confused, but the fearsome anger from before has faded into a weariness that speaks to long lives.

 

(How long was her life? Before the Library? During? Since? He has no idea.)

 

The Doctor winces and clears his throat. "That's why I came here. It's been _so long_ since I've seen you, _my wife_. So very long."

 

"Our last night." She laughs, the sound still slightly off, as though the humor has been leeched from her with the years. "You won't see me for a long time after that - or, well, _spoilers_."

 

"No," the vehemence of that is hard to deny. River arches an eyebrow at him and he amends, "Not our last night. You're here now, River, and if you think I'm going to _leave you_ -"

 

She shushes him with a finger to his lips. "Hush now, Doctor." And there, at last, his name does not fall like poison on her lips. "You've jumped too far ahead. There's time yet to be lived and goodbyes yet to be said. Find me after, when there are no more spoilers."

 

He bites back his refusal, bending to kiss away the sadness from her blood-stained lips. "Where?" He swallows, hard, lips a hairsbreadth from hers. "Not - not here, certainly - not all this time?"

 

"No, not here." Something flashes across her eyes at the reminder of where they are, something as dangerous and hopeful and unhinged as he feels. Her lips brush his ear, "Shall we burn it to the ground, my love? All these books - it would just take a spark and the whole planet would be set ablaze."

 

He can't deny the thought is fleetingly tempting. Dangerous. The guilt rushes back a second too late, licking on the heels of his excitement. "What about CAL?"

 

"Oh, Charlotte deleted herself ages ago, as did the others," he blanches but River pins him under a too knowing gaze. "Nobody wants to live forever, Doctor."

 

His hearts heave and stutter as though punctured. No, living forever is a burden that most can't bear. The weight of memories too much - without the distraction of his companions he would have succumbed to it long ago. "And you?"

 

River pulls away from him, standing fluidly and casting her gaze about their rumpled and shredded clothing. The question she answers isn't the one he asked. "I rigged the teleporter into the wiring while you were out. It was just a matter of recoding where my body was saved and exporting myself back into the Library."

 

Forcing himself to his feet, weary with hope and failure and exhaustion and exaltation, the Doctor dares to ask, "Why didn't you find me?"

 

She won't look at him. "I had to wait for the others to go, first."

 

He catches her with foolish hands, always pushing her, always demanding more. "How long?"

 

The look on River's face withers him. "Long enough."

 

The Doctor winces and releases her, shoving one hand through his hair to keep from reaching for her again. Out of the corner of his eye he watches the dark shapes that seem to scuttle away from River. "And the shadows?"

 

River holds up an old-fashioned lighter, rescued from some pocket of her clothing. She laughs again, a bit dangerous, a bit mad. "They can't hurt me, but I can hurt them. Burn them all up." The flame springs up, such an ephemeral, flickering light. "Well, Doctor?"

 

He swallows, watching the shadows shift fearfully, watching the harsh red glow reflected on River's face. Her eyes are dry now, her hair wild, standing naked amongst shadows and flames, waiting to watch the world burn. "Will I see you again?"

 

"If you can catch me," she unclenches her fist, his broken bowtie resting there.

 

It feels like the beginning and the end and hello and goodbye all at once.

 

The Doctor's hearts pound in his chest as River sets the bowtie alight.

 

"Let it burn."


End file.
